First off I would like to say I love Chattanooga. But upon hearing and reading about the Moccasin Bend Park/ Visitor Center I am deeply concerned. For years and years Moccasin Bend has been there for Chattanooga’s mentally ill people. Now they are being turned loose onto our streets and communities to “fend” for themselves. There is no longer a “safe haven” for them.

Our local and state jails are being overrun with criminals, and now 16% of the inmates are the mentally ill. This is also a growing statistic. This is truly an injustice for them. They should be in institutes with the proper medications and staff to protect them from being victimized or victimizing our community. Our jails are not equipped to handle the needs of these people and their disorders. Somewhere I had read that the majority of homeless people (over 80%) suffer from schizophrenia and/or other mental illnesses.

I am all for keeping Chattanooga a beautiful city for raising children and with wonderful tourist attractions, but we need not forget the mentally ill. For they are someone’s child, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s loved ones. Doing the “right thing” is not always doing the easiest thing, but somehow we need not forget that our mentally ill people need to be protected and provided a safe haven.

Mindy Carpenter

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I couldn't agree more with the article regarding Moccassin Bend by Ms. Carpenter. I'm not sure what has happened in the last few years, but it appears that the Bend has stopped trying to help patients being discharged from their facility get back home. What I mean by this is that allegedly persons being discharged are put on a van and dropped off at Community Kitchen here in Chattanooga if they don't have a relative or friend there to pick them up.

Since MBMHI serves a multi county area, Chattanooga's homeless population grows weekly. These are often the frailest of the frail and also the most dangerous. Dumping mentally ill patients at the doors of the Community Kitchen may seem like a good idea but sadly it is not.

I recently met a 40 something year old man who informed me that he was living in a small town outside of Murfreesboro when he began experiencing suicidal thoughts. Immeditely he was put into the back of a police car and shuttled off to Chattanooga to receive treatment at MBMHI. When he was "cured" of his suicidal tendencies a mere 3 days later, he was put on a van and dropped off at the Community Kitchen. Scared, alone and confused this man also was diagnosed as being mentally retarded. He has family but they cannot make the hour and a half drive to come and get him. So guess what? He becomes yet another Chattanooga homeless person.

In case you haven't been downtown in some time, our homeless population is growing every day. The resources for the homeless population are stretched to the max. The questions I have are: is Moccassin Bend willing to help folks being discharged get back home to the hometowns they came from? Is dropping folks off at the doors of the Chattanooga Community Kitchen the best solution?

Mary Anne Watkins

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A couple of statements quite literally jump from above:

"(B)ut we need not forget the mentally ill. For they are someone’s child, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s loved ones."

"Doing the 'right thing' is not always doing the easiest thing."

"He has family but they cannot make the hour and a half drive to come and get him."

With no attempt being made to attack the commentators above, this is exactly the problem ... families don't take care of their own any more.

There was a time when Maw and Paw, Grandpaw and Granny stayed at home and the family took turns caring for them. There was a time when Crazy Uncle Charlie stayed at home and was cared for by his family. But these days it's oh, so easy to send them off to some "government" facility to spread the resource expenditures out among all of the rest of us.

Back in the 60s, President Johnson decided that "government" (that's, like, the rest of us) could be a better daddy than a real daddy. Some demographic groups in our great nation have seen the percentages of illegitimate child births grow to as much as 70% since that time. The rate of crime in those neighborhoods has increased as well. 10 young people arrested in Chattaboogie last week after a neighborhood shoot-em-up-bang-bang incident, 11 the week before, several incidents of individual shootings or other violent acts ... but we don't have a gang problem ... and many of those who live on the public dole cannot even name their "baby-daddy."

The nuclear family, the basic social unit of our society, is being destroyed. To quote former State Rep. Bob Patton from Johnson City, "once might be a mistake, twice is questionable, but three or more time is intentional."

Since the early 70s "no fault divorce" has come into vogue. Anyone who cares to correlate statistics can easily see that not only have the number of divorces increased but the conflict as well, and the detrimental affect upon our children. The basic building block of our society, the nuclear family, is being further destroyed by an industry that tells us a "family" is not necessary, that government will be our daddy.

But we don't even see the relationship with other societal ills.

What's the next step? Children being born from test tubes, then raised in government run nurseries, while the so-called adults live their lives in a soma-induced stupor as in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? Look around. It's enough to cause one to wonder if we aren't beginning down that road.

An hour and a half away, but his family cannot come and get him ... I've had "mere" friends travel farther, and longer, than that to help when I got tender body parts stuck in a wringer. I've done the same for them, and family.

Where are the families of these people being thrown out in the streets? Could it be that if we had stronger nuclear (pronounced "new-cue-ler" in Texas) families, those family members would have a stronger sense of responsibility to take care of their own instead of dumping them on the rest of society ... or the streets? If family members don't care, why should the rest of us?

I need chocolate, maybe with another cup of coffee and a cigarette, while I contemplate the meaning of that Lookout Mountain republican dude's "closed door policy."

Royce E. Burrage, Jr.
Royce@OfficiallyChapped.org

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Several years ago (1968 through 2004), I was very active as an advocate for the mentally ill, getting involved with the National Association for the Mentally Ill, the AIM Center, Tennessee's Homeless Initative, and Tennessee Protection and Advocacy.

Here are some of our findings:
1. We repeatedly had to bring in the US Department of Justice to provide some protection for the institutionalized mentally ill.
2. Tennessee would eventually sign "Consent Orders" that were eventually discarded and ignored.
3. The children's unit at MBMHI was among the DOJ inquiries.
4. The "Circle of Care" report for children found that Tennessee had the highest rate of kids in psychiatric hospitals in the US.
This was because the for profit hospital lobbies had prevented the development of any of the other options for kids' care: grouphomes, day treatement programs, boarding schools, etc.
5. The largest mental health providers in Tennessee are the large municipal jails, with Shelby County leading the way.
6. Over the past forty years, we have repeatedly decreased the number of public hospital beds for the mentally ill, with no provision for "step-down" services for those people being dumped from the hospitals.
7. The Supreme Court's Olmstead decision (providing community based programs for the MI) has been largely ignored in Tennessee. It won't change until the DOJ cames in again.

Steve Daugherty

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It seems to me that Mr. Burrage has failed to notice one of the fundamental flaws in his argument. Mr Burrage states "There was a time when Crazy Uncle Charlie stayed at home and was cared for by his family." Those days are gone, and not solely because of divorce becoming trendy, or the breakdown of the American family.

What about break throughs in health care and psychiatry? Maw and Paw are not always the best caregivers for the mentally handicapped or ill. Mental health care as we know it really didn't come around till the 60's and 70's. Also most families don't have the time to devote to care of a mentally ill person. That requires someone being there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That's especially harder to do in today's economy in which you need as much money as possible coming in to stay afloat.

Do I agree we should take care of our own? Yes I do. However what if taking care of my own means letting someone else give the time and attention that I can't? In the end we may see the end of mental health care with the way the state legislature keeps cutting their funding, but to quote
State Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, “I think we’ve got our heads in the sand about mental illness. It should be our ‘polio’ issue for this generation. We should be addressing it with that much vigor. We’re not saving any money by (cutting funding). It will cost us exponentially.”

Greg Petty